Primary Tools & Materials:PAPER, 3D PRINTER

This is a letter study I thought I had finished weeks ago. Let's just say me and the 3D printers haven't been getting along. This study is inspired by paper and executed with 3D printing. In order to imitate the behavior of folded paper origami, I first practiced making a few letters out of paper, to see where and how the folds would form the shape of the letter. In both of my paper studies, the parallel strokes of the letter folded so that they were on the same plane - two on top, two on bottom. In my 3D design, I wanted each stroke to tuck under the next; a sort of möbius strip. I couldn't get this to work with real paper without an awkward loose strips of paper peeking around the edges, but I knew I could manipulate it to work in the 3D software.

When I moved to the computer, I started by sketching this design out with geometric shapes in Adobe Illustrator. Then I could import those individual pieces into the 3D software as .svg files and rotate them to "tuck in" to each other and form one solid shape.

Just as in all of my previous 3D printed letters, this study left evidence of its creation in its final form. The 3D extruder created the angled planes in steps - filling in each one with perpendicular diagonal lines. It was a complete accident that those diagonal lines alternated direction on each step - which created the uniform herringbone pattern on the letter's surface.

Translating this study into a digital letterform would require exaggerated shadowing to clearly define where each corner tucks in or above the adjacent stroke, similar to the way I defined the stroke order in my "hand painted Helvetica" from Day 71.